John Young
John Watts Young ( San Francisco , September 24 1930 ) is an American former astronaut (astronaut). He is the first man in space six times has flown and is one of the twelve astronauts who have been on the moon. Biography [ edit ] Young was initially a test pilot in the Navy and settled in 1962 with an [http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-4_Phantom_II F-4A Phantom II] two climbing speed records: on February 21 at an altitude of 3000 m in 34.52 seconds, and on April 3 to 25,000 m in 3 minutes, 50.44 sec. On September 17 of that year he was selected for the astronaut program. Young was on March 23 1965 for his first space flight launched as a pilot on board the Gemini 3 . His companion was Virgil Grissom , who had previously flown aboard the Mercury MR-4 .Gemini 3 was the first manned flight in the context of the Gemini program , and the first U.S. manned space flight with a crew of more than one person. After three revolutions around Earth Gemini 3 landed in the Atlantic Ocean . Young was on July 18 1966 for his second space flight launched aboard the Gemini 10 . He flew as commander along with pilot Michael Collins . They performed rendezvous maneuvers out, and Collins performed a spacewalk. The third spaceflight Young began on May 18th 1969 when he launched aboard the Apollo 10 . Its function was pilot of the Command Module . ( Thomas Stafford was commander andEugene Cernan was pilot of the lunar module.) Apollo 10 was the last test flight for the first landing on the moon by Apollo 11. Apollo 10 carried the air completely out like Apollo 11, which would carry, with the exception of the moon landing itself. The lander carried into orbit around the moon all sorts of maneuvers, including decoupling and coupling with the Command Module, and dropped to 10 kilometers above the lunar surface. Young was the fourth time launched on April 16th 1972 aboard the Apollo 16 . This time he was captain. Ken Mattingly was pilot of the Command Module and Charles Duke pilot of the lunar module. Duke and Young conducted three moon walks out, which lasted a total of nearly 20 ½ hours. In addition, they collected nearly 95 pounds of lunar material, and drove three times in the lunar vehicle which she succumbed almost 26 kilometers in total. In the period between his Apollo and Space Shuttle flights Young was head of the Astronaut Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston , Texas . The fifth spaceflight Young was also the first flight of a Space Shuttle flight STS-1 . Young was as commander launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on April 12th 1981 with pilot Robert Crippen . During this flight of 54 ½ hours, the systems of the Space Shuttle were extensively tested. It was the first time that a spacecraft crew was tested without first unmanned test flights had taken place. Young was the sixth and last time launched on November 28, 1983 , again aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. This flight, designated STS-9 , had several firsts. It was the first flight of a space laboratory Spacelab , it was the first flight with a crew of six, and it was the first flight with a non-American astronaut aboard a U.S. spacecraft (the German Ulf Merbold ). His six spaceflights lasted a total of almost 35 days. Since joining NASA Young, including astronaut various positions. Since December 31, 2004, he retired. Young is married to Susy Feldman, has two children and two grandchildren. Category:1930 births